The Maori dress was of several kinds. The roughest was made from the leaves of the Phormium[81]. These leaves were split into three or four slips, which, when dried, were plaited into a material midway between knitting and cloth, with the unwoven ends hanging out as a fringe. Two or three pieces of this would serve as a complete dress, one of them being tied over the shoulders with a string and reaching down to the knees. At the end of this upper garment was fastened a bodkin of bone, which served the purpose of raising a corner to the shoulder or any other part of the dress. The second piece of cloth was wrapped round the waist and reached nearly to the ground, but both sexes wore a belt or girdle, which they scarcely ever removed. The finer cloths were made from the fibre obtained by macerating the Phormium leaves, and were roughly woven in a frame about 5 feet long and 4 broad, somewhat after the fashion of matting. This beautiful, glistening, silky cloth was ornamented with borders of different colours done with stitching, something like the old English wool-work. Some of the chiefs wore dresses made entirely of dogs' skin, but, this fur being very valuable, it was more often cut into strips and sewn on to their clothes as an adornment. Cloaks of sealskin were worn in the south. In both islands the men and women trimmed their garments with birds' feathers, especially those of parrots, penguins, and albatrosses. Dogs' teeth were collected and strung into necklaces. The women wore bracelets and anklets made of the bones of birds or of shells, while the men preferred pieces of green jade or whalebone. Besides boring their ears and wearing ornaments in the lobes, or decorating them with the down of the albatross, which was as white as snow, they often bored the septum or gristle of the nose between the nostrils and thrust feathers through the hole. The chiefs would carry a staff of distinction, generally the rib of a whale as white as snow, much carved, and ornamented with dogs' hair and with feathers; or a stick about 6 feet long, adorned in the same manner and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Chiefs and warriors also carried a great jade club, called _patu-patu_. It was fastened to the wrist by a strong strap, lest it should be wrenched from the owner in fight, but the chiefs sometimes wore this handsome weapon stuck into the girdle round their waists. [81] _Phormium tenax_, New Zealand "flax", which is so important a feature in the resources and development of New Zealand in earlier days, was an aloe-like plant with stiff, sword-shaped leaves like those of a flag in growth. From the centre of the mass of flag-like leaves rises a tall flower column, perhaps 10 feet high, bearing numerous orange-red tubular flowers like those of an aloe. Phormium, indeed, belongs to the Lily and Aloe order.